to his right was Nick Petrocelli, the new town counsel. In front of them, in a broad semicircle, were the two Hopkins boys, their father, Charles, their mother, Kay, and their lawyer, Brendan Fogarty. Beyond them was Carleton Jencks, Sr.' Carleton Jencks, Jr.' known as Snapper, and the Jencks lawyer, Abby Taylor. Earl gave Jesse the finger while pretending to scratch his upper lip. He and Robbie both smirked. Snapper was expressionless.
'As you know, Stone,' Fogarty said, 'and, as I warned you, the District Attorney's Office has decided that your case against these lads is so tainted by the way you treated them that they won't bring it to trial.'
Jesse was motionless, his swivel chair tipped back, while he looked at Fogarty the way he had learned to look at gang bangers in South Central. The stone-faced stare that every big city cop masters his first month in a black and white. To his right Petrocelli was equally motionless, looking bored, staring out the side window at the late gathering evening. He was a dark, slim young guy who wore glasses with big, thick black frames. Jesse wasn't sure about him. Petrocelli had graduated from Harvard Law not very long ago and put in time as a prosecutor in Suffolk County, before he joined a big Boston firm as a litigator. He had moved to Paradise after that and become pro bono town counsel when Abby Taylor resigned. But he wasn't thirty yet, Jesse was pretty sure. There was about him a hint of Ivy League condescension, and in the few times Jesse had been with him, he seemed bored in his duties. Fogarty, Jesse noticed, responded to Petrocelli with inadequately concealed amusement. Even Abby, who, except in certain areas that Jesse knew of, was the essence of propriety, seemed heedless of Petrocelli. On the other hand, Jesse thought, the price is right.
'And,' Fogarty went on, 'it is that same precipitous treatment of these boys that has brought us here tonight. We intend to bring suit, for false arrest and imprisonment.'
Jesse turned his stare from Fogarty for a moment and looked at Abby Taylor. She nodded.
'We are part of the suit, Jesse,' she said.
Jesse didn't speak. His stare rested heavily once again on Fogarty.
'Do you have anything to say?' Fogarty asked.
Jesse glanced over at Petrocelli.
'Nick?'
'It's America, Jesse, say whatever you want.'
Jesse nodded as if that were sage advice. He kept nodding slightly as he looked carefully at each of the people seated in front of him.
'What are you all doing here?' Jesse said.
'I told you,' Fogarty began.
Jesse interrupted, 'Nobody had to come here for that. You could have sent me a notice in the mail,' Jesse said.
'Why are you here?'
'Well,' Kay Hopkins said.
'I can tell you why I'm here.'
Her husband said, 'Kay...'
'Don't you shush me, Charles,' Kay bore on.
'I wanted to look right into the eyes of the kind of man who would mistreat two little kids.'
'Mistreat?' Jesse said.
'Arrested falsely, imprisoned falsely, frightened to death? What would you call it?'
'You guys frightened?' Jesse said to the Hopkins brothers.
'Oh sure' Earl said.
'We was scared to death, wasn't we, Robbie?'
'Scared to death,' Robbie said and giggled slightly.
Jesse nodded and looked at their mother.
'Don't you talk to them,' she said.
'You don't want them talked to, what'd you bring them for?'
'I wanted them to learn that the system does work. That they have parents who will stand up to it and make it work. That police brutality is unacceptable.'
'You feel the same way?' Jesse said to Charles Hopkins.
'I feel my sons were badly treated,' Hopkins said.
'I want to see justice done.'
'How 'bout you, Jencks?'
'I haven't decided what I'm here for yet,' Jencks said.
'I'm listening.'
Jesse leaned back in his chair a little farther. Petrocelli seemed almost asleep. He had one elbow on the edge of Jesse's desk and was resting his chin on his fist. He didn't appear to be looking at anything. Jesse surveyed the parents. Charles Hopkins wore a good suit and tie. He was a slim unathletic-looking man, who parted his hair low on the left side and swooped it up over his bald spot. His wife was just overweight enough to make her chic business suit ride a little at the hips. She had a lot of blond hair and considerable eye V shadow and a hard mouth. Snapper's father was a big man with f square hands and a crew cut. His neck was thick. He wore desert boots and khaki pants and a white short-sleeved dress shirt open at the neck. His forearms were muscular.
'So what have you guys learned so far?' Jesse said.
'That you can't push us around and get away with it,' Earl said.
'That's what I learned too,' Robbie said.
Jesse looked at the parents.
'Good enough?' he said.
'No,' Kay Hopkins said.
'I demand that you apologize to these boys.'
'Mrs. Hopkins,' Fogarty said and put a hand out as if to keep her at bay.
'We hired you, Fogarty,' Kay Hopkins said.
'You didn't hire us.
I'll talk when I want to talk.'
'Mrs. Hopkins, as your attorney...'
'Oh be quiet. Stone, are you ready to apologize?'
'I'm ready to talk,' Jesse said.
'As soon as it's my turn.'
'I'd like to hear him,' Carleton Jencks said.
His voice was deep, and there was authority in it.
'Anyone else got anything else to say?' Jesse said.
'I don't want to cut you off.'
He looked over the group. No one else spoke. Outside the office windows, it was dark.
'Okay, here's what I know. I know that there were two perfectly nice guys living a perfectly nice life in a perfectly nice house, and these three kids burned it down for the hell of it.'
'You can't prove that,' Kay said.
'Didn't say I could,' Jesse answered.
'Said I know it. Robbie told me.'
Jesse reached across his desk and punched up the tape recorder.
'No.' It was clearly Robbie's voice.
'No. I wasn't even in the house. I was outside watching chickiefor the cops.'
'Oh? So who set the fire?' Jesse's voice sounded calm.
'I don't know. I wasn't even in there. Earl had the gas can.'
'You're trying to tell me that he was in there with Snapper?'
'Snapper told us he found an open window at the fag house and he'd been in there and tagged the walls in the living room. Earl stole the gas from my dad, for the power mower, and him and Snapper told me to watch for the cops, and they went in the house.'
'Through the window?'
'No, Snapper left the door unlocked.'
'And you went in and torched the place.'
'No.' The sound of panic in Robbie's voice was oppressive in the crowded room.
'No, I didn't. Snapper and Earl torched it.'
Jesse reached over and shut off the tape recorder.
'Fucking squealer,' Snapper said.
'He's lying,' Earl said.
'Brat.'
Carleton Jencks put a hand on his son's knee.
'We're here to listen, son,' his voice rumbled softly.
'Not to talk.'
'That's not admissible evidence,' Kay Hopkins said.
'You intimidated him into saying it.'
'Kay,' Fogarty said.
'Shut up,' Kay said.
'You weren't in the house?' Jesse said to Earl.
'No.'
Jesse sighed and ran the tape fast forward and punched PLAY.
'Snapper made me do it.' Earl's voice said. It was shaky as if he'd been crying.
'We went in the house just to look around and then we got in there, and Snapper made me help him.'
'Stop it,' Kay Hopkins said.
'Stop the tape.'
Jesse punched STOP. Kay Hopkins was pale, and there was a small tremor in her shoulders. Beside Jesse, Nick Petrocelli had his feet up on the windowsill. His eyes were closed.
'I didn't say that,' Earl said.
'You did too, liar,' Robbie said.
'You're the liar,' Earl said.
Kay Hopkins turned and slapped the son that was nearest. It was Earl. His eyes filled and his face reddened.
'Kay,' her husband said.
'You bastards,' she said to her sons, 'see what you make me do?
Do you like seeing me like this?'
'For God's sake, Kay,' Fogarty almost shouted, 'will you shut the hell up.'
She spun toward him in her chair as if she might slap him too.
Her husband stood and put his hands on her shoulders. Jesse hoped she didn't have a weapon.
'Mrs. Hopkins,' Jesse said.
'You either get yourself under control, or I'll arrest you for assault on a minor child.'
Kay didn't look at him. She shook her shoulders, trying to dislodge her husband's hands, and looked at Abby Taylor.
'Well, goddamn it, what about you? You're a woman.'
'I think you should be quiet, Mrs. Hopkins. I think you should let your attorney speak for you. I know Chief Stone. He will do what he says he will do.'
Slumped on his spine in the chair by the window, with his feet still on the windowsill, Petrocelli opened his eyes and pushed his glasses up on his nose, 'You've probably guessed, Brendan,' he said in a
